


Draw a Box

by Blackrider



Category: Les Misérables (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-02
Updated: 2014-02-02
Packaged: 2018-01-10 23:26:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1165840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blackrider/pseuds/Blackrider
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The instruction is to 'Draw a box', Grantaire isn't quite sure what he should draw. And then he is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Draw a Box

"Draw a Box"

Grantaire stared at his professor. Just like the rest of the art students present in the lecture hall. 

Some were murmuring how deep and intelligent this task could be. Others quietly whispered “What the fuck” and “Has the old man finally gone crazy?” 

Grantaire looked at his blank canvas and then back at the professor. Professor Alistair Jusen often gave his classes tasks that contained a deeper meaning. But sometimes, he just meant what he said. So Grantaire watched his instructor closely, trying to see if he could finally figure out his tell. 

However, Jusen didn’t have one. 

The art student took the pencil that he’d stuck behind his ear a few minutes ago and roughly draws a box in 3D on his canvas. Right in the middle, not bigger than his fist. It only took up a very small space on the canvas. And the blank whiteness stared at Grantaire, accusingly. He was not finished, a long way from it. But he didn’t know what do to. 

When he hears box, he hears Think outside of the Box. He hears some others in his class having the same train of thought and stops staring at his piece of paper to look at the others.

Some are drawing an open box, with colours and similar stuff - flowers, people, a rainbow - flowing out. But it all feels wrong. To Grantaire at least, it doesn’t seem right. It can’t be so easy.

His box is closed. It’s a cube. All sides are equally long, even in his rough sketch, they’re about the same length and width and depth. It’s not that easy to think outside of the box. None of the other students seem to understand - maybe only Grantaire does because he sees the world more realistically than the others do. 

Enjolras would make a case about it’s not the thinking outside of the box that is the difficult part, but the part where you realise you’re thinking inside of a box in the first place. As soon as you realise that, you can change your way of thinking. Be less ignorant, stop putting other people in boxes of their own. 

Grantaire would call bullshit on that. Immediatly, and without having to think about it for too long. 

The thinking outside of the box is the hardest part, because you’re comfortable in your box. At the very least most people are. 

Jusen makes his round after twenty minutes, taking a minute for each canvas, assessing what his students have done so far. He sees most of the students either having drawn a very pretty box or have a canvas full of things and people and images that flew out of the boxes. 

When he comes to Grantaire’s work, he pauses. It’s a cube, a box with six sides, all visible to the eye because of the lines indicating three dimensions. 

Grantaire hates it when other people look at his work, especially if it’s not finished. He hasn’t had that problem with Professor Jusen for a long time. Jusen understood him, in some way, as a fellow artist maybe, maybe just as someone who thought about philosophy and art as much as Grantaire did. 

He sits silently, feeling shame at having the blankest and most simple of all the works in the room. 

Jusen doesn’t say anything, moves on, just like he had done with the rest. 

Grantaire stares at his canvas again, getting angry and frustrated. He’d like to punch a hole into the box. And then he thinks, _why not?_ He leans forward, concentrating now, unaware of the smile Jusen had allowed to rest upon his face. 

He draws a tiny crack into the box, making it seem like someone is trying to force his way out by punching the insides. 

It might be hard to think outside of a box, but if he could not do it simply by _thinking_ his way out of it, he could always use blunt force.


End file.
